A NIGHT'S PERIL. 115 



So tempered I sat breakfasting. With the con- 

 fusion of softer feeling, which I have tried to de- 

 scribe, was mingled a little indignation at a letter 

 which I had just received from my old friend Jack 

 Hardy. He did me to wit, that he had heard of 

 my goings on, and congratulated me on being ordered 

 off, before I was regularly nabbed. In case of the 

 worst, and this was the part for which I could have 

 thrashed him, in case of the nabbing aforesaid hav- 

 ing actually taken place, he suggested that I need be 

 under no alarm, since now I had an obvious opportu- 

 nity of going home to " consult my friends." Con- 

 sidering how often I had myself used this weary old 

 joke, I remember it did seem to me a little odd that 

 I should so wince at it then. " Nabbed," thought I ; 

 " I only wish that Jack, or anybody else, would tell 

 me by whom." And then I began to think how like 

 my state was to that of a hypochondriac, who, assailed 

 by fifty symptoms at once, knows not which to re- 

 gard, and so misses the cause of all the evil. Au- 

 thorities agree in stating, that a man can be in love 

 with but one person at one time ; so in spite of 

 appearances, I was obliged to conclude that some 

 one particular young lady was the motive power of 

 the distraction I exhibited. 



But little mattered it who, or how many, the girls 

 might be I was going to leave them all. Soon 

 Mauritius and its happy company would have to 

 exist for me dreamily, and as an image of the past, 



